Tag: fulltiltpoker

The results of the main event of the World Series of Poker are in and the fantasy poker season at Full Tilt has been settled. By virtue having picked Phil Ivey and Eugene Katchalov, I came in 739 in this last event, earning $4.9M of the fantasy dollars. To point out the “Ivey Effect” of basically having the baseline of this event be over $4M: my brother had Ivey as an A and one other guy that cashed low so he had $4.2M . He came in over 10,000th place. More than 9,000 places were determined by the 700K in the middle.

By virtue of my 39th place overall, I came in 4th in the Poker Road Forum league and have already been paid a cool $15 American into my Poker Stars account. I’m pretty sure that the Poker Road Forum league kicked the absolute ass of every other one. PR had 13 people in the top 100 of the overall season.

This was an unbelievable amount of fun, and I picked up a little cash between the PR payout and cashing in the freerolls associated with the events. I can’t wait until next year.

Going into the main event of the World Series of Poker, I’m sitting at 101st overall in the Full Tilt Poker fantasy league. The top 100 finishers get entrance into special freeroll that pays out an entrance to the 2010 main event (really, $12,000 which is about the equivalent – you can use the money for whatever you want.) I was under no illusions that I could coast regardless where I finished after event 56 but this is a tight spot. I have to have a good main event.

After a month plus of playing this hard and trying to gather as much information about each player, which events they were entering, their past performance, etc – the main event was different. I could make the assumption that everyone was playing. I sort of went with the zen and just picked without over thinking it. I picked Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonious out of defense. I expect that most everyone will have them and if I don’t and they do well, I’m sunk. This really comes down to picking the couple of highest finishing more obscure players and whoever does that will do well.

I’m on pins and needles about it. The main event is so sprawling I’m not even sure if any of my picks have played, what their stacks are, who is out. I made my bet, now I can only hope it works out for me. I’m leaning more towards younger internet players than name pros so I hope a few of those bets hit.

I have a vested interested in the outcome of the $50K HORSE event at the World Series of Poker. I have three guys from my Full Tilt Poker fantasy picks at the final table, and if they finish high or one of them wins the bracelet, I have a good shot at finishing in the top 100 overall. This qualifies you for goodies, so I’m invested. I went to ESPN360.com to watch the streaming and this is what I saw:

ESPN360.com is available at no charge to fans who receive their high-speed internet connection from an ESPN360.com affiliated internet service provider. ESPN360.com is also available to fans that access the internet from U.S. college campuses and U.S. military bases.

Your current computer network falls outside of these categories. Here’s how you can get access to ESPN360.com.

1. Switch to an ESPN360.com affiliated internet service provider or to contact your internet service provider and request ESPN360.com. Click here to enter your ZIP code and find out which providers in your area carry offer ESPN360.com

My response to all this: ESPN can kiss my ass. I’m not changing ISPs in order to accommodate their weirdness. If you want to stream the thing, stream the thing. Put ads across the screen and give it away. All you did was make me angry at the ESPN brand.

Not only that, it is inept as all hell. I have two cable internet choices, which puts me ahead of most of the country. I followed the link out of morbid curiosity to see if other providers had access. I clicked Time-Warner and they showed no access with a link for “request access to ESPN 360 from Time-Warner”. I clicked the one for HTC – “Horry Telephone Cooperative” and it sent me to the “Nebraska Telephone Cooperative”. Whoever keyed this in confused an “h” and an “n” somewhere. Brilliant. Now ESPN 360 isn’t merely scumbaggy but inept too. Nice.

I wish my brother a happy birthday and talk about him and me playing online poker; I play a song from an Amy Ray solo album; I talk about PayMeToBlog and Open Roadtrip and play my interview with Scott Shawcroft and Brandon Hines of Open Roadtrip; I play a song by Alana Davis; I talk a little about creating for the love of it, I beg you for your feedback and spitball the general theme for my PME talk; I go out with my theme song of upbeat defiance by Ms. Michelle Malone; bye bye.